Monday, June 24, 2013

During dinner with a friend, I happened to mention that it
was the 46th. anniversary of the assault on the Liberty. My guest, a college professor, responded
that she did not know about the Liberty. Even
though her field of study was science, not history, I was surprised. I should
not have been. She represents a large segment ofAmerica’s educated community and
she did not know anything about the USS
Liberty.Of course, it is not her
fault.The news of the Liberty
was covered up.How could she know?I sat there comparing the assault on the Liberty with the
assault on Benghazi.

I don’t know what happened in Benghazi. Don’t guess we will ever know.
Congress is screaming to find out.“We
must investigate,” they say. “We’ll leave no stone unturned. It’s our duty to know. Our credibility is at
stake.”

We may never know what happened last September in Benghazi, which caused
the death of three brave Americans. However, I do know what happened on June 8,
1967. Israel deliberately attacked an unarmed American ship in international
waters, killed 34 brave American sailors, wounded 171 others, and Congress has, to this day, refused to investigate what or why it happened.

What happened is abundantly clear. Israel’s
warplanes, on a sunny afternoon, after circling numerous times, bombed and
machine gunned the U.S.S. Liberty. With
the Stars and Stripes flying and the ship’s identification numbers clearly
visible, Israeli jets struck the antenna to hinder any SOS call for help. Torpedo
boats blasted the Liberty while Israeli aircraft strafed our
men aboard and dropped napalm on the decks.Israel
fired on the crew as they tried to rescue their fellow sailors and shot up life
rafts in the water to prevent there being any survivors. Yet, none of this merited a Congressional
investigation.

Professor James Petras writes:

In an unprecedented act of
betrayal, President Johnson, in close liaison with powerful American Jewish
Zionist political backers, covered up the mass murder on the high seas by issuing
orders, first to recall Mediterranean-based warplanes from rushing to assist
their besieged comrades, then threatening to court-martial the survivors who
might expose the deliberate nature of the Israeli assault and finally by
repeating the Israeli line that the attack was a matter of mistaken identity, a
lie which numerous military leaders rejected.[i]

Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chair of the Joint Chief of Staff,
described the official conclusion of the Naval Court of Inquiry as a whitewash
and “one of the classic all-American cover-up”.

The clampdown was not actually for
security reasons but for domestic political reasons. I don’t think there is any
question about it. What other reason could there have been?President Johnson was worried about the reaction
of Jewish voters… I will never buy the idea that the pilots did not know this
was an American ship. The attack was deliberate.[ii]

Secretary of State Dean Rusk agreed,

I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to
disable and sink Liberty
precluded an assault by accident or some trigger-happy local commander. Through
diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe
them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous.[iii]

In 2002, Captain
Ward Boston, JAGC, U.S. Navy, senior counsel for the Court of Inquiry, said
that the Court's findings were intended to cover up what was a deliberate
attack by Israel on a ship it knew to be American.

Israel claimed it was an accident. Yet, I know
from personal conversation with the late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd ---president of
the Court of Inquiry --- that President Johnson and Secretary of Defense
McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of “mistaken
identity.” [iv]

Jamal Kanz, Middle East
scholar and author, wrote just last week:

The cover-up was finally exposed by
an Israeli pilot who was interviewed 15 years later by former Congressman Paul
McCloskey about the attack. The senior pilot revealed that he informed
headquarters the target appeared to be a US ship, but was told to ignore the
American flag and proceed with the attack.[v]

One Liberty
survivor, David Lewis summed it up:

If it was
an accident, it was the best planned accident I’ve ever heard of.[vi]

Even if it were a mistake, which no one believes anymore,
deliberately shooting up life rafts in the water of a ship in distress is a war
crime. If it’s not, it should be. Was Johnson afraid of Israel? Hardly.He was afraid of the ire of the American Jewish voting community and its
lobby. And that’s not the worst of it. Every president thereafter has yielded
to an unwritten job description: He must above all else, cover up for Israel.

George Ball, former undersecretary of state wrote, “If
America’s leaders did not have the courage to punish Israel for the blatant murder of
American citizens, it seemed clear that their American friends would let them
get away with almost anything.[vii]He was
right. And that is the worst of it.

Thomas
AreJune
25, 2013

[i] James
Petras, War Crimes in Gaza and the
Zionist Fifth Column in America, (Clarity Press, 2010) p.127

Thomas L. Are

I preached for forty three years in the Presbyterian Church before retiring. If anyone would ever refer to me as a Liberation Theologian, I would be pleased. I started blogging several years ago to express my political and religious concern for justice, especially justice for the Palestinians.